


Press the mute button

by pr_scatterbrain



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Friends With Benefits, M/M, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 05:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pr_scatterbrain/pseuds/pr_scatterbrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharpy & Stalberg: a romance (if you don’t listen too closely).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Press the mute button

**Author's Note:**

> Blame Lexi for this. We were discussing how hockey rpf seems to considers Sharpy to married to slash and then, well, this happened.

 

 

 

_Nothing is so boring as something beautiful._

Dries Van Noten.

 

 

In every season there are wins and losses. Sharpy isn’t a stranger to either, but it’s still a relief to end a run of away losses with a win. To celebrate, the entire team decide to go out, drink at VIP tables and make Tazer foot the bill. Unfortunately this means Stalberg comes and spends the night being charming and handsome to the masses, and himself to Sharpy because apparently Sharpy is just that lucky.

For the record, Sharpy does like Stalberg. Technically. Or deep down. One of the two. They’re teammates. Also, whenever Stalberg comes out with them, he always cockblocks Kaner and/or Tazer and that is always fun even if Stalberg isn’t so much with his hair and face and general cosmopolitan suaveness that he oozes all over the place. Perhaps a better way of putting it is Sharpy likes Stalberg in that he doesn’t actually like him. Well, Sharpy likes the mutual apathy they share for each other. Kaner doesn’t understand, but of course he wouldn’t. Subtly is a foreign concept to him, as is a good skin care regime. Sharpy has been telling him as much for as long as Sharpy has known him.

“Doesn’t do any good though,” Stalberg says when Sharpy brings it up, beer in hand.

“It wouldn’t,” Sharpy allows. “He never listens to his social betters.”

“His loss.”

“Our gain,” Sharpy tells him. “I suppose.”

Stalberg makes a face and then, because he’s just as much of an asshole as Sharpy is, he finishes his beer and sets off to the bar to get himself a new one. In the process he manages to also get the number of the bartender, and distract the girl Kaner is trying to charm. It’s one hell of a show. If Sharpy didn’t know better, it’d be the kind of stunt that would endear Stalberg to him. As it is, Sharpy does know better so the only thing it does is make him feel moderately bad for Kaner, and then for Tazer when Stalberg does the same time to him when he shouts the next round.

“It’s beneath you,” Sharpy comments, because he feels it needs to be said and also because it is.

Stalberg doesn’t deny it. “It’s fun though.”

“Tazer’s going to be a bitch tomorrow.”

“Good thing I don’t have to room with him.”

“You do have to be on the same team as him.”

“True,” Stalberg admits. “Maybe I should leave him be.”

“I didn’t say that,” Sharpy says.

Stalberg smirks. “No, you didn’t.”

Sharpy doesn’t like Stalberg’s smirk. Or his face.

“You do,” Stalberg says when Sharpy voices his opinion aloud. “Don’t lie.”

Sharpy wrinkles his nose. Yeah. He does like Stalberg’s face. Gods a vengeful bastard. Everyone knows it.

“Buy me a drink,” he tells Stalberg.

“Buy it yourself,” Stalberg tells him, heading off to intercept one of the rookies who was giving a pretty red head a personal gun show. “I’m busy.”

And so no one manages to get laid apart from Stalberg and Tazer is a bitch the next day. A typical night out.

 

 

Stalberg is the worst. Everyone knows that. But every team has one.

 

 

Then there is the time when Sharpy is nominated for Chicago’s Sexiest Athlete which apparently a thing.

“Just so you know,” Stalberg says, when it comes up. “I’m not going to vote for you.”

“Where’s your team loyalty?” Sharpy asks him. “It’s not my fault you weren’t nominated.”

“Hey, did you ever think maybe I might want to vote for Derrick Rose.”

“Derrick Rose? You’re going to vote for Derrick Rose?”

“Better than you.”

And – and Sharpy has to walk away from that one.

 

 

So yeah, every team has one.

(The Blackhawks have two).

 

 

It makes sense then, if Sharpy was going to sleep with anyone, he’d end up sleeping with Stalberg. Murphy’s law, or something akin to that. It’s still insulting though when Stalberg asks if he’s ever done this before.

“Do I look like a virgin?” Sharpy asks, because really. He isn’t Kaner.

Stalberg eyes him indifferently. “You could be.”

“I’m not.”

“Good for you.”

Good for Stalberg, Sharpy thinks rather indigently. Then he says as much, except when he does, Stalberg gets a look on his face.

“Have you done this before?” Sharpy finds himself asking.

“No.”

“Bullshit,” Sharpy calls, because, well, really, bullshit. “You’re no virgin.”

Stalberg shrugs. “I could be.”

“Just like I could be?” Sharpy badgers.

“You seem like the type.”

“The type who’s into you being a virgin?”

“Yeah.”

Sharpy doesn’t know where to go from there.

Stalberg grins. “Roleplay is hot.”

It’s a good thing Stalberg is hot, that’s all Sharpy thinks.

 

 

So yeah, that happens. (And by that, Sharpy means getting to third base and then a home run in the morning (and then Stalberg makes Sharpy buy him breakfast because he’s that sort of guy)).

 

 

It happens again when they’re drinking with the guys. Sharpy isn’t quite sure what Stalberg is doing there with them, since he and Sharpy tend to hang out with different guys in the team. But he is here, and apparently his hand is on Sharpy’s thigh. Sharpy looks at it and watches Stalberg’s fingers trace up along the in-seam of his jeans.

“Want a hand?” Stalberg asks. “And by ‘hand’ I mean do you want to fuck?”

Sharpy looks at him. They’re in public. Or more accurately they’re at Seabs’ place in his living room sitting with Kaner and Shawsy who have perked up considerably. (Tazer however hasn’t even blinked; he’s schooling Duncs on Xbox that thoroughly).

Stalberg looks back at him.

And okay. “We can make out and maybe you can blow me.”

“Sounds good.”

 

 

Sharpy ends up blowing Stalberg in Seabs' guest bathroom. (Kaner and Shawsy may or may not watch).

 

 

The next day Kaner skates over to Sharpy between drills and starts talking about this interview Alexander Skarsgård did where he talked about how he had sex whenever he was bored. Sharpy is used to Kaner. He’s a good kid. But really, Sharpy had no idea what Kaner’s talking about.

Kaner hip checks him like he’s the one being stupid. “It’s a cultural thing for Swede’s.”

“What is?”

“Recreational sex.”

Sharpy –

“Stals is Swedish,” Kaner says, as if he hadn’t said enough dumb shit already.

“We’re not talking about this,” Sharpy tells him definitely. No talking. None at all.

Kaner frowns. “But you’ll still let me watch sometime, right?”

Q blows his whistle. Thank god, Sharpy thinks. Small mercies.

 

 

Sharpy luck isn’t that good though. It barely holds long enough for him to disappear before Tazer finishes yelling at Kaner after practice. Sharpy is about halfway across the parking lot when he notices Stalberg waiting for him at his car.

“Are you telling tales about me?” Stalberg asks, leaning against the car hood like some fashion model from the 80s. “Didn’t your mother tell you that’s rude.”

“That was Kaner.”

“Oh,”

“Yeah. I told you we should have locked the door.”

“I recall you telling me to blow you,” Stalberg winks.

Winks. Really.

Sharpy watches as Stalberg throws his gear in the backseat of Sharpy’s car. “What are you doing?”

“Nooner?” Stalberg suggests. “You’re right. I never did get around to giving you that hand job.”

“Blowjob,” Sharpy corrects.

Stalberg shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure you said hand job.”

And okay.

“Are you bored?” Sharpy queries because fuck, Kaner and the dumb things that come out of his mouth.

“That’s racist,” Stalberg says, sliding into the passenger seat. “I didn’t think Canadians said shit like that.”

“Fuck you,” Sharpy tells him. But he gets in the car.

 

 

And now getting substandard hand jobs becomes something that sometimes happens after practice.

It could be worse, Sharpy thinks. It could be four in the morning booty calls. Now that, Sharpy is too old for.

 

 

“You know, it makes sense,” Kaner says.

“What does?”

“That you’d both be bad as sex. Good looking people rely on their looks all the time. Why wouldn’t they do that in the bedroom?”

Sharpy – on one hand Sharpy should really stop confiding in Kaner. On the other? Well, sometimes Kaner makes it too easy. “What’s your excuse then?”

“Ohhh, burn,” Kaner laughs.

“Too right,” Sharpy tells him, slapping him on the back.

 

 

So in the end, Sharpy decides to embrace it. He picks up his mobile and calls Stals. If they’re going to do this, they’re going to do it right. Stalberg answers on the first ring.

“So about you being a virgin,” Sharpy says.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find/follow me on [tumblr](http://www.pr-scatterbrain.tumblr.com) if you want <3


End file.
